March 2, 2015 | Morning Headlines.

Main Story

Somali Army’s Battle With Al-Shabab Leaves At Least 51 Dead

28 Feb – Source: Bloomberg – 173 Words

At least 51 people were killed in Somalia in fighting between troops and Al-Shabab Islamist militants late Friday near the southwestern town of Wajid, a government official said.“Our forces attacked Elbar village which is 18 kilometers away from Wajid,” Salad Mohammed, deputy district commissioner for the area, said by phone from the town. “We managed to kill 47 fighters on the spot.”
A senior Al-Shabab was captured in the fighting in which four soldiers also died, according to Mohammed.The al-Qaeda-linked group has waged an insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation since 2006 in a bid to impose Islamic law. While the group has lost ground since being driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 by government and African Union forces, it continues to stage deadly gun and bomb attacks. Mo’allim Gedow, the Al-Shabab self-styled governor of the southwestern region, claimed victory in a speech on Radio Andulus, which backs the group. Five bodies of government soldiers killed by the group were on display, he said. “We show our enemies no mercy.

Key Headlines

Car Explosion In Galkaayo Kills Customs-Duty Chief (Radio Goobjoog)
Bad Weather Hampers Advance In Galgala: Puntland Army Chief (Garowe Online)
Police In Hargeisa Arrest Three Terror Suspects (Radio Danan)
Somali Militants Execute Convicted ‘Witch’ (Hiiraan Online)
Somali National Army Claims Victory Over Al Shabab in El-Bur (Radio Goobjoog)
20 Kenyan ‘Hostages’ (The Star Kenya)
Somalia And Djibouti Pledge To Promote Somali language (Coastweek/Xinhua News)
UAE At The Heart Of Anti-Terror Push (Emirates News Agency)
Somali Army’s Battle With Al-Shabab Leaves At Least 51 Dead (Bloomberg)
Angry Local Somalis Allege Racial Profiling Harassment At Airports (Star Tribune)
Somalia’s Al Shabaab Injures Police In Mogadishu Car Bomb (Reuters)
Eight Al-Shabaab Militants Killed In Somalia (Business Standard/IANS)
Central Bank Chief Battles To keep Somalia Connected To World Finance (Reuters)
U.K. Jihadists First Drawn To Al-Shabaab In Somalia (Wall Street Journal)
Nkaissery Democracy Is Not The Root Of Terrorism (Daily Nation)
Somali Remittances: The Reality (Hiiraan Online)

SOMALI MEDIA

Car Explosion In Galkaayo Kills Customs-Duty Chief

01 March – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 82 Words

Reports from Puntland say that the customs-duty chief for Galkaayo, Duran Omar Dahir, died after his car which was fitted with explosive devices blew up in the centre of the town on Sunday. Security forces reached the scene and commenced operations around the area, but the Puntland administration has not yet commented on the assassination and nobody has claimed credit for the attack. As has been the case recently, Al Qaeda linked Al Shabaab group have been targeting Puntland government officials.

Bad Weather Hampers Advance In Galgala: Puntland Army Chief

01 March – Source: Garowe Online – 240 Words

Puntland Army Commander-in-Chief Gen. Saed Mohamed Hirsi (Saed Dheere) has faulted bad weather, impassable roads and rough terrain for the slow pace of fight against Al Qaeda linked Al Shabaab militants in Galgala, Garowe Online reports. During a 30 minute-long program moderated by the VOA Somali Service on Saturday afternoon, Gen. Saed Dheere said although army troops made considerable advances on the frontline, difficult terrain and damaging weather conditions presented challenges to the forces.“There are several problems we encountered-bad weather conditions, impassable roads and geographically, rough topography,” Gen. Hersi said.

The Puntland army chief added that the troops further moved 75km off the Bossaso-Garowe highway, and have inflicted heavy losses on Al Shabaab militants since December 2014. He said more than 80 Al Shabaab fighters were killed and as many as 100 were wounded in sporadic raids on hotbeds in Galgala. On October 1, 2014 Puntland forces pushed Al Shabaab from the agriculture-rich village of Galgala, 50km southwest of the port city of Bossaso. According to the government, 14 soldiers died and 20 others were wounded in clashes and roadside bombings. Al Shabaab honed terror operations in Bossaso, carrying out 4 raids on pre-planned targets in three weeks. Former Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole launched major offensive against the militant group in mid-2010; ever since, Al Shabaab has been regrouping in hideouts along the Golis Mountain ranges.

Police In Hargeisa Arrest Three Terror Suspects

01 March – Source: Radio Danan – 164 Words

Somaliland security forces have arrested three young tenants renting a house near Gacan Garage, in Hargeisa’s Xero-Awr neighbourhood, after people, who suspected the trio’s motives, contacted the police. According to police spokesperson Abdullahi Hassan Faarah, the CID Department in Hargiesa is currently investigating them.
“The police at Daloodho Police Station arrested three young men, one of whom was wearing hijab. Now, they are being held at the C.I.D headquarters,” the police spokesperson said. “As the investigation is under way, we shall not talk about the matter in advance up until the result of the investigation comes out.” He also thanked the people who gave the tip off to the police, and called on all the Somalilanders to work with the police in combating crime. The police in Hargeisa have been carrying out a series of security operations. Somaliland is one of the most peaceful parts of Somalia.

Somali Militants Execute Convicted ‘Witch’

28 Feb – Source: Hiiraan Online – 112 Words

The Al-Qaeda-linked militant group in Somalia executed a man on a charge of witchcraft, the latest brutal public execution by the group, residents said on Friday. An Al-Shabab judge found Abdiqadir Sh. Adam guilty of invoking magic, and sentenced him to be executed by firing squad in the south-western town of Diinsor on Friday, residents told Hiiraan Online. Hundreds of residents, including children, watched the public execution at a plaza in the town. Despite international condemnation, Al-Shabab often executes suspects after finding them guilty in ad-hoc courts.The group, which is fighting the African Union forces and the Somali government has stepped up its guerilla attacks and bombings in the nation.

Somali National Army Claims Victory Over Al Shabab in El-Bur

01 March – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 116 Words

The commander of Somali National Army in El-Bur district, central Somalia, Col. Mohamed Arale has told Goobjoog that they defeated Al Shabab fighters in the area after heavy fighting. “It’s not easy to eliminate the enemy soon, but I can tell you that we are in the final stages of uprooting them, even the citizens have now realized who their public enemy is. They are helping us in the fight against Al Shabab, as we are Somali National Army and African peacekeeping forces AMISOM are here to help the Somalis,” Col. Arale said. There have been consistent skirmishes between SNA and Al Shabab in and around El-Bur, a town that used to be one of the main bases of Al Shabab.

REGIONAL MEDIA

20 Kenyan ‘Hostages’

28 Feb – Source: The Star Kenya – 93 Words

Twenty Kenyans and a South Korean master mariner have sent out a distress call for humanitarian assistance after their ship was captured by security guards off the Coast of Somalia. The crew aboard Zanzibar-flagged FV Lucky Star had hired a private security firm whose guards turned against them five days ago, said Andrew Mwangura, East Africa Seafarers assistance programme coordinator. “One of the crew told me that they are running out of supplies, gas and ship stores. They are some 80 miles South of Kismayo,” he told the Star on the phone Friday.

Somalia And Djibouti Pledge To Promote Somali language

27 Feb – Source: Coastweek/Xinhua News – 245 Words

Somalia and Djibouti have signed a bilateral agreement to promote the use of Somali language in both countries. Speaking in Mogadishu on Wednesday after the conclusion of a five-day conference on the Somali language and its role in unifying the Horn of Africa countries as part of the International Mother Tongue Day which was observed on Saturday, ministers from the two countries called for the protection and promotion of the Somali language. “We encourage young people to use the Somali language, particularly in official communication in government offices and not to use foreign languages such as English. Through this we will be able to nurture the Somali language as both official and national language,” said Mohamed Abdi Hayir, Somali Information Minister.

On his part, Minister of Culture and Islamic Affairs of Djibouti Aden Hassan Aden said the governments of the two countries will cooperate in building a regional academy for study and research of Somali language. “Our governments are committed to ensuring the Somali language is protected and promoted into the future and will serve as a binding factor between our countries. We will commit finances towards the establishment of the regional academy which will bring together Somali scholars from different parts of the globe,” said Aden. The Somali language is spoken in four countries in East and Horn of Africa, namely Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, but is the national and official language in Somalia and Djibouti.

UAE At The Heart Of Anti-Terror Push

27 Feb – Source: Emirates News Agency – 388 Words

UAE’s plan to launch a Contact Group to Counter Extremism is so important and will be a significant part of the ongoing wider efforts to make sure that all the nations engaged in the fight against terror are able to share best practices as quickly as possible, including sharing intelligence and ensuring that the wide variety of counter-terrorism measures are effective across all their borders so that the pressure mounted on extremist operations is consistent, commented a local daily. The fight against extremism will not be won by any one country acting on its own. Even if a particular nation succeeds in recapturing territory or bringing extremists and terrorists to justice, this victory will be short-lived if the action is not part of a worldwide effort to counter what has become a global threat, the Dubai-based English language newspaper, Gulf News, said in its editorial today. When Dr. Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, presented the UAE’s plan at the United Nations Security Council this week, he also made the point that continued inaction has a dreadful human cost, with a specific example of the plight of the Syrian and Palestinian people, who have suffered grave violence for far too long without enough international efforts to help them.

The paper wrote, “The coordination required to contain and eradicate Daesh includes a global effort to stop their money flows and their international recruitment.” The extremists have managed to attract more than 20,000 deluded people from a wide range of countries, who are fighting in Syria and Iraq, and “these recruits could become a potential terror force when they return to their peaceful home countries,” the paper added. Only this week, Daesh yet again promised to expand its terror operations worldwide and it is not alone in threatening the world at large. Also this week, Somalia-based Al Shabab has threatened to bomb shopping centres in a variety of European and American cities, while other extremist organisations have said they will expand their actions into other Middle Eastern countries as well as Europe and North America. “This attempt to produce global terror needs a global response, which is what the UAE is helping to organise, building the essential links between the participating nations so that success is possible,” the paper concluded.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Angry Local Somalis Allege Racial Profiling, Harassment At Airports

01 March – Source: Star Tribune – 1,114 Words

Mohamed Farah has testified before Congress, conferred with the State Department and met with the secretary of Homeland Security. Two weeks ago, he was among a select group invited to the White House for President Obama’s counterterrorism summit.But despite security clearances from the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service, the Somali youth leader from Minneapolis says he cannot board a plane at the Twin Cities airport without being stopped and double-screened by agents of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) .En route to the White House last month, Farah was pulled aside by local TSA agents, who conducted a body search and uttered a demeaning comment before clearing him. After the summit, he said, he endured the same profiling at Washington’s Reagan International Airport before he boarded a flight home.“You are treated as a second-class citizen,” Farah said, “when you’re trying to change the narrative about being Somali.”

Farah, 30, is among a group of prominent Somali-American leaders in Minnesota who, in recent interviews, described what they say is an ongoing pattern of racial profiling and harassment by TSA agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.Their anger helps explain why many Twin Cities Muslims voice skepticism toward the Justice Department’s new community outreach program to battle terrorist recruitment, and it underscores the challenge faced by Minnesota’s U.S. attorney and federal security agencies as they try to build trust in the Somali community. “You are made to feel as if you are an outcast,” Farah said of his recent screening experiences. “When they finally gave me back my ticket, one of the TSA agents asked me, ‘Hey, were you going to make a run for it if I hadn’t given your ticket back?’ ”Recognizing the corrosive potential of such incidents, TSA and customs officials said this week they are moving quickly to address the complaints.The agencies told the Star Tribune they will be sending special teams to meet with local Somalis and anyone who believes they are being stopped at the airport without cause. It appears to be a first-time effort by both agencies to build credibility by meeting directly with members of a specific community to provide assistance with travel and documentation.

Somalia’s Al Shabaab Injures Police In Mogadishu Car Bomb

28 Feb – Source: Reuters – 198 Words

Somali militants al Shabaab detonated a car bomb in the capital Mogadishu on Saturday, injuring two police officers, police and a spokesman for the Islamists said. The al Qaeda-affiliated group was pushed out of Mogadishu by African peacekeeping forces in 2011 but has waged a series of gun and grenade attacks to try to overthrow the government and impose its strict version of sharia law.Somalia is trying to rebuild after two decades of civil war and lawlessness, but persistent attacks in the capital have complicated that effort. The fragile government is being backed by international aid aimed at preventing it from becoming a haven for al Qaeda-style militants in East Africa.

Somali police said the attackers had remotely exploded a car and then escaped. Two policemen were injured but there were no known fatalities.A spokesman for al Shabaab said the group had targeted Somali police.”The car bomb targeted the police. We played a prank on them,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman told Reuters. “The car deliberately sped as it came to a police checkpoint. The police took the car and then we remotely detonated it. The car was full of explosives.”

Eight Al-Shabaab Militants Killed In Somalia

28 Feb – Source: Business Standard /IANS – 118 Words

At least eight Al Shabaab fighters were killed when military and Africa Union (AU) forces attacked the militant group in Somalia’s Bakool region, authorities said Saturday. Somali military commander Abdirahman Mohamed said a joint force of Somali military and the AU forces launched an offensive in Celbaar town lateFriday, Xinhua news agency reported. “Our forces attacked Al Shabaab bases in Celbaar town and the offensive lasted for around 10 hours. We lost three of our soldiers and four others were injured, but we killed eight fighters and injured 15 others,” Mohamed said.However, Al Shabaab said its fighters killed more than 10 soldiers and injured many more, adding that they were still in control of the town.

Central Bank Chief Battles To keep Somalia Connected To World Finance

27 Feb – Source: Reuters – 671 Words

In a world where many central bankers fret about deflation, defaults and currency break-ups, Somalia’s central bank chief has a more straightforward mission: helping a financial industry that grew up in war to survive in peace. It has become an urgent matter. Money transfer firms which kept cash flowing into Somalia during two decades of conflict when the nation’s formal financial system collapsed are now finding fewer banks abroad ready to do business with them. Regulators around the world have tightened procedures to stop funds reaching those Western and other governments call “terror” groups, such as Somalia’s al Shabaab Islamists. Somali firms insist their procedures ensure cash reaches ordinary citizens and is not diverted. But banks are gradually closing down their ties and choking a lifeline for the nation. An estimated $1.3 billion or more is transferred each year from Somalis abroad, often in small monthly payments of $200 or $300 to keep families back home a fed and schooled.

“Somalia may live without a government but it cannot live without remittance companies,” Governor Bashir Issa Ali told Reuters from Mogadishu, where the spruced up central bank is still surrounded by bombed-out buildings and the rubble of war. “We have to address the concerns of the international community,” he said of moves to draw up new regulations for Somali banks and transfer firms. “Our regulations begin things from scratch so it’s difficult to do.” The money transfer firms, many with fully regulated and licensed offices in the West and elsewhere, insist they already meet requirements for those markets and say they are ready to do more to keep channels open, if only regulators explain would what was needed.Ali is working with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and others on regulations for the financial sector. The central bank has awarded six commercial banking licences, all to remittance firms seeking to formalise banking activities. His proposals which include biometric identification for clients and improving registration procedures for mobile phone SIM cards. “We have to ensure they have some compliance mechanisms, anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism financing,” said Ali,

SOCIAL MEDIA

CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS

“In 2011, British security sources estimated around 100 U.K. nationals had made the journey to join al-Shabaab in Somalia. Among the group of men who grew up near Mr. Emwazi was a British Lebanese named Bilal al Berjawi, who became one of the top al-Shabaab commanders in Somalia.”

U.K. Jihadists First Drawn To Al-Shabaab In Somalia

27 Feb – Source: Wall Street Journal – 817 Words

The revelation of “Jihadi John’s” alleged links to Islamic militants in Somalia offers a window into the wave of British Muslims in the mid-2000s that turned to extremism by rallying around the black flag of al-Shabaab, the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia. Western officials believe “Jihadi John,” who appeared in several videos showing the beheading of hostages, is Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwait-born British man who grew up mostly in West London. British intelligence agencies had a file on Mr. Emwazi from at least 2009, when he was stopped as he arrived in Tanzania. British agents suspected that he was trying to travel to Somalia to join up with al-Shabaab, an accusation that Mr. Emwazi denied. He was never charged with a terror offense. The account is according to British civil-rights organization CAGE that interacted closely with Mr. Emwazi. The British government has declined to comment on the case, but Prime Minister David Cameron Friday praised the work of the security services and said when people commit terrorist acts authorities will do everything they can to “put them out of action.”

Mr. Emwazi is the latest Londoner to have surfaced with alleged links to the Somali extremist group. Many of these British Muslims drawn to jihad in Somalia grew up in the same west London neighborhoods as Mr. Emwazi, a stretch of the capital long known for its Muslim communities and immigrant families, as well as grand mansions. In the same leafy streets within a two-mile radius from Mr. Emwazi’s childhood home lived two Somalis who tried to bomb the London Underground in July 2005, a man convicted of training British Muslims to fight jihad, and a man who went on to become a top leader of al-Shabaab. It isn’t yet clear how Mr. Emwazi’s road to radicalization started, but court documents and officials suggest that he had a close association with these radicals. In a transcript of a British court hearing in 2011, obtained by the British Broadcasting Corp., prosecutors name Mr. Emwazi as part of a suspected network of Islamic extremists, including another man who was the focus of the court case. British security services for years have been trying to break up a network of al-Shabaab financiers and Islamic extremists based in London.

“The resulting loss of control and breakdown creates an environment in which extremists can mobilise support from a desperate and insecure public, as was the case in Afghanistan before the Taliban and Somalia, before the Islamic Court Union.”

Nkaissery, Democracy Is Not The Root Of Terrorism

27 Feb – Source: Daily Nation – 1,482 Words

Last week, Major-General (Rtd) Joseph Nkaissery, Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National Government, told a meeting in Washington that democracy is making Kenya vulnerable to terror attacks. But as is often the case with these things, he is making a true but trivial point. Mobile telephones, banks and the Internet also make Kenya vulnerable to terror attacks. Come to think of it, free trials also make it likely that some crooks won’t be punished. Should we abolish these things too to secure Kenya from terrorists? The point is that terrorists will always exploit the systems in place to hurt us: The real issue is what we can do to stop them. By asking the wrong question, the CS is likely to adopt the wrong strategy; undermine the Bill of Rights; limit democratic space and increase police presence in everyday life. In the short run, such measures may seem to work but they eventually increase national vulnerability. There are four reasons why this is so.

First, even though the type of terror threat we face is unique to our times, terrorism itself is neither new nor unique: The Government should not treat it as if it were. From the princely states of Renaissance Italy to the nation-states of the 20th century, terrorism has been a fact of political life. As Philip Bobbit notes in Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty First Century, a study of the evolution of terrorism down the ages, Salafist terror groups — such as al-Shabaab and Islamic State — are, in fact, a form of terrorism unique to the globalised, market-driven world of the 21st century. These groups are anti-democracy, anti-secularism and are opposed to the universality of rights. They are also diffuse, globally networked, flexible and adept at using the tools of globalisation — the Internet, jetliner, the financial system and the 24-hour TV station.

“Most importantly, we need the U.S. government to institute a stop-gap solution in order to avert the imminent crisis. While we greatly appreciate the U.S. government’s interest in a durable solution to this problem, in the short-term, our priorities now are ensuring the survival of our people and preventing al-Shabaab from gaining a foothold in the midst of its free-fall.”

Somali Remittances: The Reality

27 Feb – Source: Hiiraan Online – 633 Words

Somalia is at a critical juncture: Al Qaeda and its affiliate Al-Shabaab are on the back foot, thanks in large part to the critical support being given to our national security forces by partners such as the United States of America and our coalition partners on the ground. The economy is rebounding with thousands of Somali-Americans returning and making significant investments. The foundation for Somalia’s recent economic and security gains are the members of its Diaspora, who work multiple jobs and send home whatever they can to support their loved ones. These remittances are also the lifeline of the Somali people. They account for more than Somalia receives in humanitarian and development assistance and foreign direct investment combined, and nearly half of our people depend on them to meet their most basic needs like food, shelter, healthcare and school fees.

The amount of remittances from the US alone runs in hundreds of millions of dollars, a significant portion of Somalia’s GDP. This remittance corridor is being threatened with a near-total closure this month as the principal American bank facilitating remittances to Somalia, Merchants Bank of California, closed the accounts of the Somali-American remittance companies. Big banks say transmitting funds to Somalia is not profitable enough to stomach the reputational risks involved; the smaller banks who have until recently filled the void say they are unable to bear the costs of compliance with US government regulation. Without bank accounts, remittance companies are unable to send money in a way that is transparent and secure, and soon may not be able to send money at all.